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A zoological sensation at Zoo Nyiregyhaza (Hungary)!

2018. 10. 09.

A zoological sensation at Zoo Nyiergyhaza (Hungary)!

One of world’s most rare animals was brought to life.
For the first time in Hungary, an Indian Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) was born.
The little bull calf arrived after 16 months of pregnancy, without complications and was welcomed into the world during the late afternoon hours on September 26 in Nyiregyhaza, a breeding animal park for many rare species.
In anticipation of the birth, the specially designed box for the baby and the mom was also equipped with cameras to help capture the moment of birth.

The red panda (Ailurus fulgens) twins just turned 9 weeks old at Nyíregyháza Zoo. The red panda cubs live in the same enclosure with their parents and today they had a veterinary examination where the cubs got measured and specified their sex. Currently the healthy female twins are 610 gram and 720 gram. The red panda parents have been living together for 4 years, Ting-ting came from Bratislava and Szecsuán is from the Dublin Zoo to Nyíregyháza Zoo as a result of the European Endangered Species Programme. It’s very difficult for them to reproduce in captivity so it was such a huge joy and professional success that the twins were born.

The cubs were born with gray fur, and in the first weeks they were helpless and also their eyes were closed. In that period of time the mother spent most of the days with her twins, but recently she only goes to feed them. The red panda cubs are growing extremely fast, they are the miniature copies of their parents. They are getting more interested in of the outside world so the lucky ones can get to see the rare red panda twins.

Red pandas also known as red bear cats, they live in the Himalayas, in the upper forest of North Burma, also the west side of Sichuan and in Yunnan the height of 2000 – 4800 meters. Their upper fur is coarse, but under that there is a thick fur which helps them to stay warm and dry in the cold and moist weather. The red pandas use their shaggy, long tail as a pillow or blanket.

The red bear cat name refers to the features of a bear, moreover they climb on trees very well – the help of their semi-retractable claws – and also clean themselves like cats. They mostly consume bamboo, but sometimes their foods are eggs, insects, nestlings and small mammals.

They have six fingers on their front leg. The sixth finger is the enlargement of the wrist bone which is opposable to the other fingers, so the pandas can easily rip off the bamboo shoots. Red pandas can be active at any time of the day, but they look for food especially at twilight. On average they spend 56 percent of the day awake which is probably the adaptation of low calorie content foods.

Besides their name they are not relative to the giant panda, only that both species belong to the predators.

Currently less than 10.000 pandas live in the wild, this number have decreased about 40 percent in the last 50 years because of losing their habitat and poaching. For example earlier in Nepal red pandas were hunted for their fur which people used to make hats. In China their tail was used for brooms

Vietnamese sika deer which has already been extinct in the wild was born

2018. 07. 19.

Vietnamese sika deer (Cervus nippon pseudaxis) which have already been extinct in the wild were born at Nyíregyháza Zoo. The group has one hart and three hind – only can be seen in Hungary – which came to Nyíregyháza from Polish and Czech zoos in the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP) in 2017. This species are very shy, so professionals put the rare ungulates into a quiet, woody enclosure where newborns were brought to life this year. The calves were born after 7,5 months of pregnancy with a few weeks of difference and besides the breast milk they are already consuming hay.

The Vietnamese sika deers extinct in 1960 because of poaching and the destruction of their natural habitat. Nowadays they can be only seen at nature reserves and zoos. The rare Vietnamese sika deers like the thick undergrowth woodlands where open areas can be found. They are the most active at dawn and in twilight.

In the summer their fur is russet and two sides of their body is covered with yellowish-white spots, which provide them the perfect camouflage when they are grazing in a sparse forest.

In the winter time when the vegetation is sparse the deer’s fur turns into greyish-brown and the color of the spots fade. Currently 370 specimen are being held in nature reserves and zoos.